When night falls
Dec. 22nd, 2002 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenI have had a horrible, horrible, hellish day, and it was all of my own making. Perhaps. Maybe.
Maybe I haven't made it entirely clear, but I don't fit in here. I don't fit in at all. And I used to think it was just the language barrier, but it isn't. I don't like it here. Which is not true, because sometimes I do. But I don't belong. I don't like huggung relations I have never met and will never meet again, most likely, and I hate myself for being so ungrateful. I do. I hate them, and I hate me.
Everyone looks at me like I'm a freak. And for fuck's sake who blames them, because that is exactly what I am. The way I talk, the things I say, the clothes I wear, my lack of submissiveness...
Oh, yes. I'm a girl. Well, fuck you, I am not a subservient kiss-your-feet-and-worship-your-fucking-Y-chromosome little girl. I open my mouth and offer my opinion, and they laugh, because they've never seen it happen before (and they never will again). And someone asked me some time ago how I ever expected to get married, arguing so much.
I'm a girl. I am the only girl of my generation in this family. The boys have gone to see some slice of Hindi film crappiness, Khaante - I didn't go. I ran for it. Pedar caught me and asked if I was okay, and I lied. He brought me here.
This is better because for once I'm on my own, and the day has been filled with people who all seem to think I am a toy to make gentle fun of, and she won't mind, because it isn't her life they're tossing around like a football, and it doesn't matter at all, because she isn't a good little Indian girl, only a fucking foreigner!
I don't want to change myself. I am who I am who I am... and in the middle of all their trying to persuade me to speak Hindi, no-one ever suggests they all learn English.
That was an uncharitable thought, I'm sorry.
And in the end, it doesn't matter because I'm leaving. Yes, I am. I'm leaving and I'm not coming back. Some random distant relation asked me today, "Why don't you live here? Tell your parents you want to come and live here! England... not home. This is home!"
I wanted to get up and scream, "No! Fuck you!"
But I didn't. I said, "I will, Auntie."
I am a misfit. I am the wrong person, in the wrong time, in the wrong place, and I don't belong and I begin to feel I don't belong anywhere.
I want to come back here. I like it here, it is the home of my ancestors. But an Indian family structure is like this - for so long as I am alive, my male relations will feel like they have the right to tell me what to do. Because they are male. Because they have penises.
I can keep myself safe by hiding. I've lived in Britain for my entire life, and I'm kind of... happy there. And no-one can ever take control of me, never never never, because I argue too much, and when night falls it doesn't matter, because I'm not important anyway.
Maybe I haven't made it entirely clear, but I don't fit in here. I don't fit in at all. And I used to think it was just the language barrier, but it isn't. I don't like it here. Which is not true, because sometimes I do. But I don't belong. I don't like huggung relations I have never met and will never meet again, most likely, and I hate myself for being so ungrateful. I do. I hate them, and I hate me.
Everyone looks at me like I'm a freak. And for fuck's sake who blames them, because that is exactly what I am. The way I talk, the things I say, the clothes I wear, my lack of submissiveness...
Oh, yes. I'm a girl. Well, fuck you, I am not a subservient kiss-your-feet-and-worship-your-fucking-Y-chromosome little girl. I open my mouth and offer my opinion, and they laugh, because they've never seen it happen before (and they never will again). And someone asked me some time ago how I ever expected to get married, arguing so much.
I'm a girl. I am the only girl of my generation in this family. The boys have gone to see some slice of Hindi film crappiness, Khaante - I didn't go. I ran for it. Pedar caught me and asked if I was okay, and I lied. He brought me here.
This is better because for once I'm on my own, and the day has been filled with people who all seem to think I am a toy to make gentle fun of, and she won't mind, because it isn't her life they're tossing around like a football, and it doesn't matter at all, because she isn't a good little Indian girl, only a fucking foreigner!
I don't want to change myself. I am who I am who I am... and in the middle of all their trying to persuade me to speak Hindi, no-one ever suggests they all learn English.
That was an uncharitable thought, I'm sorry.
And in the end, it doesn't matter because I'm leaving. Yes, I am. I'm leaving and I'm not coming back. Some random distant relation asked me today, "Why don't you live here? Tell your parents you want to come and live here! England... not home. This is home!"
I wanted to get up and scream, "No! Fuck you!"
But I didn't. I said, "I will, Auntie."
I am a misfit. I am the wrong person, in the wrong time, in the wrong place, and I don't belong and I begin to feel I don't belong anywhere.
I want to come back here. I like it here, it is the home of my ancestors. But an Indian family structure is like this - for so long as I am alive, my male relations will feel like they have the right to tell me what to do. Because they are male. Because they have penises.
I can keep myself safe by hiding. I've lived in Britain for my entire life, and I'm kind of... happy there. And no-one can ever take control of me, never never never, because I argue too much, and when night falls it doesn't matter, because I'm not important anyway.
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no subject
on 2002-12-22 01:57 pm (UTC)Nolite te bastardes carborundorum ;)